Offa Bank Robbery: Here is why many people died – Kwara CP

Mr. Aminu Saleh, newly appointed Kwara State Commissioner of Police, has said the recent armed robbery attack on some commercial banks in Offa which claimed a lot of lives was because of intelligence break down. Following news that armed robbers had raided 5 banks in Offa, Kwara state, killing over 40 people including police officers, Nigerians couldn’t help but wonder why security officials weren’t at the scene of crime to curtail damage.

While speaking with journalists in Ilorin, the state capital on Thursday , Saleh disclosed that the police also had low connectivity with members of the community, admitting that they had no knowledge of the attack beforehand. In his words;

“We had an intelligence break down. We had many criminals attacking a few policemen.

“We had little information on the attack before it happened. However, we’re re-strategising and repositioning our men. We’re working on the community to ensure that those lapses we observed are addressed.

“What essentially went wrong is our response capacity. We’re going to correct all those anomalies and get our men to be more responsive.

“We’re on the trail of the suspects and a lot of successes have been recorded. It is true that we have deficit of APC in the state; in fact we have two moribund ones. But there is already an arrangement on the ground by the state government to intervene and assist in this manner.”